When I Need to Remember
Why the Land is Our Greatest Teacher
When I need to remember what it means to be kind, I look to the apple trees. Plump and plentiful for our picking, they generously sacrifice their flowers for our crisps, cobblers, and pies.
When I need to remember how to be calm and trusting, I look to the waves and their gentle, boundless flow. Even if everything else was to leave, the waves would always come back.
When I need to remember how to dance, I watch all that the wind picks up in its path. Swirling, spinning, and soaring, the wind leads with no choreography.
When I need to remember how to sing, I listen for the morning robins. I echo their songs in a voice that’s not as pretty, but it’s a voice I otherwise can’t find.
When I need to remember the power of silence, I head to the desert and let the sun bake my mind. I sit alone with my thoughts on barren land until the Joshua tree points me in the direction I should go.
When I need to remember that there’s such a thing as happy endings, I watch the sunset bring us into night – and there are strangers watching beside me, so captivated by its beauty, we forget to be sad about another day gone.
When I need to remember that it’s okay to feel sadness, I stand in the rain with my face turned toward the sky. The raindrops blend with my teardrops as the sky and I cry together and we comfort one another like lovers in the night.
When I need to remember I’m worthy, I admire the moon in all its phases. It shines bright every night despite the sun getting more air time.
When I need to remember to let go of what’s passed, I turn to the trees shedding dried, brown leaves as fall turns to winter. Then winter turns to spring and spring turns to summer and summer turns to fall again, and there’s new crunchy leaves for the trees to release.
As the seasons change, I watch friends come and go, and my ancestors kiss the dust. This life we were gifted is cyclical, but we fight against it like a fish swimming upstream.
We can build planes that soar high above to see from the perspective of a bird, but we’ll never be a bird. We can build borders and dams, to control where life goes, but we’ll never have the final say. We can build computers and phones that allow us to be everywhere all at once, but we’ve forgotten we already are everywhere all at once. We’ve built clocks to keep track, both digital and analogue, but we can never turn the hands on the earth’s eternal clock because Mother Earth…she turns us.
When I need to remember who I am, I step outside and let my bare feet be tickled by the grass. Instantaneously, my heart rate slows and I feel at home, the crackling under my feet like an opening door. I spot a group of mushrooms to my right, with caps like roofs, and lie down next to them in the grass, feeling infinite, held by my ancestors' hands. An ant crawls up my arm, nibbling my skin, and I close my eyes, letting it. I may be bigger than it, but it’s no less important, so I sit still, trying not to disturb it, and I breathe in and out, thinking about how the branches of a tree look like lungs. Or more accurately, how lungs look like branches of a tree.
The land is my greatest teacher because she teaches me to remember what I’ve forgotten, guiding me back to the inherent knowledge I keep buried between my lungs and my heart. The branch of a big maple tree blows in the wind, waving hello, welcoming me back, and I wave hello in return. When I want to feel unconditionally loved, I kneel to the earth because she gives and gives and gives and asks for nothing in return. Lying outside, I no longer feel lost because my jeans are muddied by my ancestor’s dust, the grass is a pure green, and green is the colour of my heart.